Air conditioning, usually in the form of “heating, ventilation and air conditioning” (HVAC), is a preferred way to achieve a moderate indoor climate in buildings and vehicles. Especially in vehicles, offering only little space, air conditioning modules are used. Usually, they are at least partially contained in a respective housing. They may comprise several sub-parts such as a blower, a heater core and an evaporator or a combination thereof. The sub-parts are mounted within respective sections of a housing. This improves the handling of the air conditioning module during transport and installation. Besides, it prevents direct contact of the sub-parts with external objects such as a user's body and alleviates the effects of such a contact, respectively. An air conditioning module of this kind, having a one-piece housing half shell, is described in DE 103 50 449 A1, for example.
Like most technical devices air conditioning modules and their housings have to be designed to allow maintenance access. For this purpose U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,004, describing an integrated heater-evaporator core, shows a housing having two removable covers, one for a blower and one for the unitized heater and evaporator core. Each cover can be removably secured to the housing by respective threaded fasteners to provide access for service requirements.
In other cases, molded clips or snaps are known to be used to close an opening of a housing of an air conditioning module.
These techniques known in prior art have several disadvantages. They require handling with multiple separate components, resulting in a high production complexity. Besides, they are complex regarding the case of maintenance access for the same reasons.